


Stuck in the Middle

by Helena_Hathaway, Jazzrockedthestage, PillowNinjaa



Series: The FBI Gets Shit Done [3]
Category: Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco, Paramore
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Police, Alternative Universe - FBI, Attempt at Humor, Crime Fighting, Crimes & Criminals, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, Friends With Benefits, Hate Sex, Hate to Love, M/M, Murder, Police, Robbery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-23
Updated: 2015-07-17
Packaged: 2018-02-22 06:56:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2498744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helena_Hathaway/pseuds/Helena_Hathaway, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jazzrockedthestage/pseuds/Jazzrockedthestage, https://archiveofourown.org/users/PillowNinjaa/pseuds/PillowNinjaa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gerard’s team snags a case following a series of fatal robberies, angering the team who were previously assigned to it. Something is off about the victims killed at each scene though, and they can’t quite figure out what the link between the deaths is, if there even is one. The clock is ticking on this high profile case though, and the feud between the FBI and the NYPD isn’t making things any easier. Gerard is faced with the trouble of having to balance his heavy case load with his new relationship with Frank that’s... complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You're Down On Your Knees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dead body.

“Have you ever seen a real, honest to god, actual dead body before, Frank?” Brendon asks, looking over at Frank. In all honesty, he does look really uneasy like he’s going to puke any second. Really though, that’s not a very surprising reaction to seeing someone dead in the middle of a restaurant.

“Uh, no,” Frank says. Gerard snickers at him and Frank sends him a death glare.

“What are you laughing at?” Frank spits at him.

“The little boy afraid of a little corpse,” Gerard replies.

“You can’t tell me that you’re not honestly a little freaked out by the woman lying dead right there,” Frank says.

“Not really,” Gerard shakes his head.

“You Brendon?” Frank asks.

“Me? No, I’ve seen a plethora of corpses. Not a big deal,” Brendon shrugs. He gets down to his knees to look a little closer at the dead lady.

“Well yeah, but that’s because you spend so much time in the morgue,” Gerard teases, “You’ve got a crush on the coroner.”

“I do not have a crush on the coroner,” Brendon replies, looking up at Gerard angrily.

“You so do have a crush on the coroner,” Gerard replies, stepping nearer to Brendon to look at him. Admittedly, over a dead body is a really strange place to be mocking your friend about who they like.

“So who’s the coroner?” Frank asks.

“Don’t even dare, Gerard,” Brendon warns him.

“You think I’d let Frank in on the intimate details of the girl you’re in love with?” Gerard asks, “Because I so will.”

“I thought you two hated each other!” Brendon groans, pulling himself back up to full height.

“We do, but it’s fun to see you so defensive,” Gerard smirks. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell Frank that you’re in love with Sarah. Oh, whoops.”

“I fucking hate you,” Brendon sighs.

“Are we not going to talk about the dead lady right there?” Frank asks exasperatedly.

“What? Oh yeah right. Well, I’d say she’s like, what mid-twenties? Looks like she took a 9mm to the skull. Probably dead on impact. I’m no Sarah the coroner though,” Gerard says.

“Fuck off,” Brendon shakes his head, “We don’t have an ID, because the robbers took everyone’s wallets. I can tell you that she’s got implants though, so we can check medical history.”

“Why were you checking out a dead woman’s boobs? Brendon you’re a pervert,” Gerard shakes his head, “and besides, what do you want to check for? Twenty something with breast implants. That’s like a bazillion people in New York alone, and you don’t know where she’s from. Maybe she just flew in from Cleveland.”

“Why Cleveland?”

“First city that popped into my head. She could be from anywhere though. Boobs ain’t gonna get us anywhere. Besides, you need a warrant and a name for medical records. No, we’re just going to have to do this the old fashion way,” Gerard says.

“And what’s the old fashioned way?” Frank asks.

“We’ll see if face recognition picks up anything. Check her prints. From there we’ll just try to figure out who she was meeting,” Gerard says.

“What makes you say she was meeting someone?” Brendon asks, “Witnesses say that there was no one else at the table with her.”

“Well look at the way she’s dressed. Fancy dress, shoes that match her bag, report said she had a pearl necklace that was taken off her by the robbers,” Gerard says, “makes sense. I’d say she was on a date, and her date hadn’t gotten there yet.”

“Hey guys,” A voice says from behind them, and Patrick walks up behind him, “ew, gory.”

“See Patrick doesn’t like the dead body!” Frank says.

“Who _likes_ dead bodies?” Patrick asks, “Well anyway, what happened? I just got the call a few minutes ago.”

“Sorry to wake you,” Gerard says, looking down at his watch to see that it’s pushing eleven at night. “Looks like we’ve got a serial killer. Or a serial robber ring, I guess.”

“Oh, yeah,” Patrick nods, “I read about that. Two restaurants, and now three?”

“Yep,” Gerard nods, “one dead at each, no correlation between the two as of yet, but we have a third variable now, so maybe she’ll bring something up. The deaths look random to me though. I’m treating these as robberies foremost, and murders second.”

“So was it the same MO?” Patrick asks, “Four guys in ski masks? Go for cell phones first, then jewelry and wallets, then the cash register?”

“Yep, same deal. We’ve got a little more on the robbers this time. Several witnesses swear that there was a girl in the ranks. No more on accents though. They all said the same thing, American accent, no specific affiliation, once again.”

“So that’s it?” Frank asks. “Three robberies, one fatality at each, seemingly random victim, all restaurants?”

“Yep, so far,” Brendon nods, “no connection to the restaurants yet either, other than they’re all pricey. Mind you, if I was going to rob a joint, I’d have picked fancy restaurants too.”

“Well that’s good to know if you ever go rogue,” Gerard says.

“Have the other two been identified yet?” Patrick asks, “There were no names released in the news reports.”

“Vic one is still a John Doe,” Gerard shakes his head, “but we got a name on the second one. Real estate agent from Maryland who had a few citations for reckless driving, so his prints were in the system.”

“Dandy. A John Doe, a Jane Doe, and a Real estate agent,” Patrick says dejectedly. He’s the one who has to look for the correlation though, that’s what he does best. He’s the guy who looks at security footage, and sorts through thousands of faces to find a match if the computer can’t do it.

“Well if it helps, she got a boob job,” Gerard says, and Brendon scoffs at him.

“It doesn’t,” Patrick says.

“I told you so, Brendon.”

“What are you? Like six?” Brendon asks, and then he turns and makes his way over to talk to one of the officers on the scene.

“Grumpy,” Gerard states.

“You would know,” Frank murmurs.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Frank says, turning as well to go talk to someone else who isn’t Gerard.

“So not much has changed there,” Patrick says.

Gerard snorts and nods. Patrick’s fairly right about that one. Now granted, they are a little closer now in a physical sense. Gerard likes to think that it hasn’t affected anything about their hateful relationship though. Except that when Frank bends down to tie his shoe, Gerard spends a little more time ogling his ass than he used to, but it’s not a huge difference.

“So… is there something suspicious about Frank’s ass?” Patrick questions, looking completely amused at Gerard’s drooling. Gerard makes sure to send him the coldest glare he has, that he’s pretty sure Patrick feels when it stings on his face. Patrick seems to get the hint and leaves to go do something other than annoy the crap out of Gerard.

Gerard shakes his head and ends up walking outside of the building, desperately in need of fresh air that isn’t contaminated by Frank’s stupidly nice face. Frank looks at him on his way out and winks at him, causing Gerard to stumble and flush angrily in embarrassment. Brendon sees this take place with an evil smile on his face and follows Gerard out.

Gerard fumbles a little before managing to take a breath of air, because his head is so focused on Frank. He inhales so much that he nearly gives himself a head spin. He’s slowly trying to calm his own heart rate when Brendon shows up out of nowhere, scaring the shit out of him.

“You slept with Frank again, didn’t you?” He says, causing Gerard to choke.

“What… th-e fuck?” Gerard coughs out, thumping on his chest to relieve some of the pressure. Brendon, at the face of his clearly dying best friend, looks disturbingly unconcerned. Someone propped open the door to the restaurant to allow easier access to the onset of feds and other people who are making their way in. Voices don’t carry very far through the doorway though.

“You. slept. with. Frank. again,” Brendon says slowly, like Gerard’s a child.

“I heard you the first fucking time,” Gerard snaps, avoiding the question Brendon already knows the answer to. Brendon grins, and oh fuck, he then starts to laugh.

“Shut the fuck up, Brendon,” He says when Brendon doesn’t look like he’s going to stop.

“My guess is that it _just_ happened too,” Brendon says, “you reek of sex.”

“I-” Gerard starts and then sighs exasperatedly, “could you not?”

“You like Frank,” Brendon points, still riddled with laughter. Gerard’s eyes widen when he hears how loud Brendon is basically shouting.

“Will you shut up! I hate Frank more than I hate people who don’t close the door after they open it! That’s how much I hate him,” Gerard says defensively, wishing Brendon would just close his stupid mouth.

“No, I think you like Frank. I think you like him and that’s why you hate him,” Brendon states. Gerard just stares at him, then he blinks.

“What?”

But before either of them can answer, they’re interrupted by Frank’s high pitched pot laugh. He’s hanging out with a guy that has way too much hair, who looks familiar. He’s a cop, which means Gerard’s probably talked with him a few times, but he doesn’t remember his name. What was his name? Regan? Randy? Roy?

“Hey guys, this is Ray,” Frank introduces, “That’s Brendon, and the one with the soul sucking eyes is Gerard. He’s the one responsible for the case.”

Brendon shakes hands with him, but he doesn’t look overly ecstatic to meet him, and neither does Gerard. Gerard is too busy glaring at Frank to realize that Ray is glaring at _him_.

“So, you’re the one responsible for kicking me and my team off of my case,” Ray says, accusation in his tone. Gerard looks at him unimpressed. Seriously? Like this guy could ever intimidate anybody. Does he know who Gerard is?

“Yup,” He says, popping the ‘p’, even though, technically, it’s not true. He doesn’t really have a choice about it, the third murder reclassifies the case as a serial killer, which means that the FBI now has jurisdiction over it. Maybe it’s the fact that he made Frank laugh his stupidly high laugh that Gerard’s only heard a few times. Whoever makes his enemy laugh is immediately his enemy. 

Gerard is fairly sure he’s seen the guy around before, because they are both law enforcement, even though there happens to be a rivalry between the FBI and the NYPD. Mostly because the FBI has a habit of pulling the rug out from under their inferiors.

Frank looks confused when neither Brendon nor Gerard look overly happy to see Ray. Brendon is usually more level headed than Gerard, but the rivalry between the two classes runs deep. Frank hasn’t gotten used to it yet, because he’s new.

“Maybe you would consider a partnership on this one, as I have been working this case for the last two weeks and-”

“No,” Gerard says interrupting Ray, “Sorry, I don’t work with cops unless it’s the end of the world.”

“What?” Frank asks, looking even more surprised by Gerard’s rude behavior than usual. Really though, Gerard just met the guy and he already hates Ray.

“Frank you’re new,” Brendon says.

“That explains it,” Ray says.

“What?” Frank asks.

“Feds and cops don’t get along very well,” Brendon explains.

“I’m a detective! And anyway it’s probably because you guys all think you’re better than us, and are always stealing our cases that some of us have been working on for weeks and know a ton more about,” Ray says.

“That’s stupid,” Frank states.

Gerard rolls his eyes, “yeah, whatever. I want the NYPD away from my crime scene now. I am ever so sorry that you failed to apprehend the robbers before they became serial, but maybe you can take this as a lesson and work harder next time.”

Gerard’s rather slimy towards uniforms, detectives, and the like, because they are just so infuriating. They’re all babies, complaining about having their cases taken away.

“Whatever,” Ray says, and he walks away, barely even looking back at Frank as he collects the rest of his team. Gerard can’t help but feel a little like a high school bully when he takes a case away, but it’s still a rush of energy that’s oddly fulfilling.

“Shit,” Brendon says, looking somewhere behind them. Gerard turns around just in time to see a news vehicle pulling up into the parking lot.

“No no,” Gerard shakes his head, “I do not want reporters at my crime scene either!”

Brendon nods in agreement, and makes his way back into the restaurant. Frank stays behind to watch Gerard.

“Frank, I will warn you of this one time and one time only, if you talk about an ongoing case with any reporters I will have you suspended with no pay for three weeks,” Gerard says, “those are not even my rules. Got that?”

“Yeah whatever,” Frank says, as Gerard begins to usher people away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah so I'm not even sure we know what this story is about yet. This'll be fun.
> 
> Find the song this was named after [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMZ-Mok0vBQ)


	2. Suffocating In Between

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank stared at Gerard's ass.

“Another long night ahead of us,” Brendon scowls, looking at his stacks of paperwork sent over from the NYPD’s investigation. Gerard is sure that some of these papers are completely pointless, but they were sent over just to make his job harder.

“Patrick, you can go home,” Gerard says, looking over the table at Patrick.

“Nah, I’m here now, I’ll stay for a few more hours,” Patrick replies.

“Why does _he_ get to leave?” Frank asks.

“Well he’s not leaving is he?” Gerard replies.

“Fine, why does he have the opportunity to leave and I don’t?”

“Frank, I would be ecstatic if you decided to leave,” Gerard says with a fake smile.

“No thanks,” Frank says.

“You just asked to leave!”

“Well that was before I knew it bothered you.”

“Fuck off,” Gerard says, looking down at a paper.

“I found something interesting!” Brendon says to interrupt the bickering between the two of them.

“What?” Gerard asks, looking over at the file in Brendon’s hand.

“These robbers,” Brendon says, “there’s some unreleased details in the files that I didn’t read about in the news.”

“Well duh,” Gerard says, “oh wait, no. Sorry, that was just kind of a stupid thing to say, I thought you were Frank for a moment.”

“Hey!” Frank shouts.

“Well anyway,” Brendon says, “on the second robbery, the one before this, they got some partial prints off of one of the robbers.”

“What?” Gerard asks, grabbing the file from Brendon, “how? They were all wearing gloves.”

“Well one of the gloves was damaged it looks like,” Brendon says, “and they left a print on one of the counters in the restaurant, but it’s only a partial and it didn’t bring up any matches in the database.”

Gerard starts shaking his head, “no I don’t buy that. Must be a mistake. How do they know it’s our robber, and not someone else? A suburban house wife who wanted a piece of pie from the counter. A waiter? Anyone who has fingerprints, basically.”

Brendon rolls his eyes at Gerard, “well yeah, that would be a good assumption, but the fingerprint stood out because it was covered in blood.”

“Ew,” Patrick says, making a face.

“How was there blood on a fingerprint?” Frank asks.

“Well gunshots aren’t exactly famous for cleanliness,” Brendon says, “shooting a person in the head, there’s a certain amount of splatter involved with it, so, unsurprisingly, our perps got a little... messy.”

“Even more ew,” Patrick says.

“Well yeah, Patrick,” Brendon says, looking at him like he’s lost his head, “you work in the FBI, you work with dead people for a living. You literally study death every day, and you’re grossed out by spatter patterns?”

“I mean, I don’t cut up dead people for a living,” Patrick says defensively.

“No, Brendon’s girlfriend does that,” Gerard smirks.

“Jeez! Not my girlfriend! I don’t even, ugh!” Brendon says. Gerard snorts at the angry look on Brendon’s face.

“Well study up guys, I’ll be back with coffee in a few minutes,” Gerard says, needing to get away from the files for a few moments.

“Where’s Hayley?” Patrick asks.

“What? Oh Hayley’s out of town, she’s working on a case in LA,” Gerard replies.

“Why?”

“Because she’s smarter than all you numbskulls,” Gerard says, making his way out of the room for coffee.

“Hey,” a voice says and Gerard groans loudly when he hears Frank following him.

“What?”

“I can’t bother you if we’re still in there,” Frank says, “or talk to you either.”

“About what?” Gerard asks, rolling his eyes as he heads to the break room. He isn’t exactly keen on being anywhere near Frank now. That’s only going to fuel the jokes Brendon is going to be making later. Gerard wishes he wasn’t so transparent about it. Maybe Patrick can’t tell, but Brendon knows him better than almost anyone, so it’s unsurprising he was able to tell. 

Though if Gerard is going to be proud of anything, he’s happy that it took Brendon almost two weeks to figure it out. Two weeks since Frank and Gerard drove home together. Two weeks of fucking Frank with everyone being blissfully unaware. 

Why did Gerard have to pick up the phone? If he’d just let it go to voicemail... no he’d probably just have gotten into trouble if neither he or Frank had shown up at the crime scene. That would’ve made it more obvious. Maybe if Gerard had presented himself better, not like he’d just been having sex, but it’s too late now.

“Why won’t you make eye contact with me right now?” Frank asks when they reach the break room. Of course, considering the fact that it’s pushing midnight, there’s no coffee, so Gerard has to start a pot himself.

“Because, ugh,” Gerard fumbles with the coffee pot, “Brendon knows.”

“Know what?”

“About us,” Gerard says, as if Frank’s stupid for not catching on, which, he is.

“Oh,” Frank replies, not sounding as cheerful as he had sounded a moment ago. Gerard looks over at him through sideways eyes and scoffs as he starts heating the coffee up.

“Yeah ‘oh.’ We have to be better at keeping this secret if we’re actually going to do this. I don’t know why I agreed to it, but I did.”

“I can’t find a more attractive fucktoy in such a short amount of time though,” Frank says nonchalantly.

“I am not...” Gerard starts, “don’t call me a fucktoy, asshole.”

Gerard just brushes over the part where Frank called him attractive, because that’s all Frank ever really does. He says Gerard is attractive but then combats it with saying something like ‘but that’s just someone saying sorry for your shitty personality.’ Gerard’s concluded that, in Frank’s eyes, his only real value is that he’s good looking. To be fair though, Gerard’s opinion is that Frank’s only real value is the fact that he has a nice ass.

“I’ll call you whatever I wish, dickwad.”

“If that’s what you want than fine, midget,” Gerard responds, and then turns to appreciate the anger he just put onto Franks face.

“So you were stupid enough to just let Brendon know about us then,” Frank says, but it’s not a question, it’s a statement.

“I was not! He’s my best friend, he figured it out without me having to say a thing,” Gerard replies.

“Yeah, so basically what I’m hearing is that you were stupid enough to just let Brendon know about us.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Gerard turns to the coffee again.

“Oh come on now, Gerard,” Frank says with a honeyed voice, “we both know you’d like that, wouldn’t ya? Would probably get all hot and bothered-”

“I fucking hate you,” Gerard says, preying the coffee finishes soon so he can get away from this nightmare.

“I know you do,” Frank snorts, “about tonight-”

“We should’ve done a better job pretending nothing happened. Next time, you’ve got to make your own way here. On that note, you also need to stop staying the night. We’ll just take two cars, in your case, a douchey motorcycle, and I’ll take my car.”

Frank rolls his eyes, “fine. Any more rules, mom?”

“Don’t call me that,” Gerard says, “No, I don’t think so. We’ve just got to do a better job at hiding it. I’m starting to think Patrick might have some idea too.”

“Fucking hell, who didn’t you tell?” 

“I don’t think Patrick knows anything huge, but he knows that,” Gerard stumbles, because he does not want Frank to know about Patrick catching him staring at Frank’s ass, “Patrick, um, saw you staring at my ass.”

“Fuck, he saw that?” Frank asks, and Gerard smiles to himself while looking at the coffee pot. He had no idea that Frank did any such thing, he was just throwing darts and hoping something would stick. Now he has the information that Frank stared at him though, which he might be able to catch the guy on at a later time.

“Yeah, he saw that,” Gerard says, and finally the coffee is done, so he grabs the pot and pours himself a cup, and then a second one.

“Aw, it’s really sweet of you to consider me,” Frank says trying to grab the second cup, but Gerard snatches it away before Frank can get it.

“For Brendon,” Gerard says, and wishes that he could stick his tongue out at Frank without seeming like he’s six years old. Frank grits his teeth and watches Gerard leave the room. Gerard makes his way back to Brendon and Patrick who are quietly looking through files on the case, familiarizing themselves with it.

“You got any leads on who are Jane Doe with the boob job is?” Gerard asks, setting the coffee down next to Brendon.

“Uh, well, Patrick found one thing.”

“What’s that?” Gerard asks.

“Well that dress she was wearing, it was a high end Alexander McQueen. Worth a few thousand dollars. That kind of dress doesn’t come cheap. Add in that pearl necklace that was taken off the body and the matching shoes and bag, which are also worth several thousand _each_ , we’re looking at a woman who, just sitting down in that restaurant tonight, was worth a little over $30,000. So unless this lady had a really picky sugar daddy, I’d say we’re looking at someone with money,” Patrick explains.

“Look at you, throwing out names of designers,” Gerard jokes, “I thought I was supposed to be the gay one.”

“Yeah well, I’m the one who’s got a wife that cares about this sort of thing,” Patrick says.

Frank enters at that moment with a coffee for himself, and presumably one for Patrick. That guess is confirmed when he puts the extra cup down next to Patrick who thanks him with a small nod. Patrick’s not really a giant coffee lover, but it’s midnight and they were all about to go to bed, so any extra energy boost isn’t to be turned down lightly.

“Did I miss anything?” Frank asks.

“We think this woman might be rich, which might narrow down our results somewhat, but I don’t know how much,” Brendon says.

“Well you mentioned a purse,” Gerard says, “what was left in the purse?” 

Patrick looks through the file in his hand, “some mints, makeup, an umbrella, pepper spray, and sunglasses. Pretty basic stuff.”

“Well yeah, but there’s some things missing,” Frank says.

“The robbers looted everyone,” Brendon reminds him, “wallets and phones were taken, which is why they were not found in the contents of Jane Doe’s bag.”

“No, he’s right,” Gerard says, “there _is_ something missing. House keys.”

“Keys?”

“Yeah, keys,” Gerard replies, “why on earth would this lady be out and about, on the town, going on a date and all that if she didn’t have house keys?”

“Maybe she didn’t expect to be going home to her apartment that night,” Brendon says, winking at Gerard and shrugging his head toward Frank. Gerard sends him a death glare and rolls his eyes.

“No, that doesn’t make any sense,” Gerard replies, “think about it, she’d have to make it back to her apartment eventually, even if she expected to go home with her date.”

“So that means the robbers took her keys,” Frank says.

“And if they took her keys the logical reason for that would be that-”

“They know where she lives!” Frank finishes.

Gerard nods and forgets for a moment that he’s smiling at Frank. He then walks across the room and looks at the file that Patrick has in his hands.

“Oh this just got exciting,” Gerard notes.

“I’m lost,” Brendon says.

“Well,” Gerard says, grabbing his phone from his pocket, “if the robbers knew where this lady lived, that means they probably know who she is.”

“Okay?” Brendon says, “Who are you calling?”

“I need a favor from the NYPD,” Gerard says.

“They’re not going to like that,” Patrick says.

“No, but when I say ‘favor’ what I really mean is ‘order.’”

Frank seems to be the only other person, besides Gerard, who understands what’s going on, or seems to be happy about this discovery. Patrick and Brendon are looking from each other to the other two, trying to figure out what they know.

“What’s this order you’re giving them?”

“I need a list of any B and E’s in high-end neighborhoods that took place any time after our robbery. Or I need to be informed of any in the next few days that match that description.”

“I’m still lost here,” Brendon says.

Frank rolls his eyes at Brendon, “if the robbers know who this woman is, know where she is, than the logical assumption is that she was a target. What that means is that-”

“The victims killed at the robberies are not random,” Gerard says, “they were targeted from the get go.”

“What does that mean then?” Patrick asks, “in relation to our case?”

“Well what it means is that the NYPD have been profiling this incorrectly. These aren’t robberies that happen to involve murder.”

“They’re murders that happen to involve robberies,” Frank finishes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my coauthor's been busy which is why this took so long, but here it is.


	3. Take Your Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Filler chapter for the moment.

“I literally am going to fall asleep right here,” Brendon complains.

Gerard checks his watch to see that it’s almost seven in the morning. They’ve been there all night, just looking through files.

“Yeah,” Gerard nods. “Brendon, you can go home but I’m expecting you back before five.”

“Oh, _he_ gets to go home,” Frank mutters.

“Take Frank with you,” Gerard says.

“No,” Brendon says, but he doesn’t argue in the slightest at getting to leave. Actually he looks like Christmas has come early. Sleep is the best sounding thing in the world to all of them right about now though.

“I’ve been looking through the statements for the past hour or so,” Patrick says, “and there are some varying accounts.”

“Like what?”

“Just some little things,” Patrick says, “just think you might want to clear a few of these things up. I’ve got some witnesses describing guns that do not match the bullet casings left at the scene.”

“Who has the file on the bullet casings?” Gerard asks. He watches Brendon enviously as he grabs his jacket from the back of his chair, and waves a slow goodbye to them before he leaves the room.

“I do,” Frank says, holding it up.

“Three dead, do the bullets all match to the same gun?”

Frank sighs and looks down at his file, “two of them match. The second and third victim match, but the first victim was killed with a different gun.”

“What does that mean?” Patrick asks.

“No clue right now. Might have been two different killers, or it may not have been,” Gerard replies, “so, basically we’ve got four guys, one of them is a woman, and none of our witnesses can tell us anything about the robbers other than their ski masks?”

“Uh,” Patrick looks at his file. He’s got all the information on the witness statements, so he’s got all the descriptions given to them by people in the restaurants.

“I feel like we should have some sort of information on voices. Accents, tone, anything. I don’t care if all we have is something as minimal as having scratchy voices like they smoke, I just want some information on who we’re dealing with.”

“Well most of them say that it all happened so fast that they didn’t really think to check. A lot of these are faulty as well, they’re just making things up because they want to be helpful but don’t remember enough to actually be of any help.”

“Give me an example,” Gerard says.

Patrick nods, and picks out one statement, “One person recalls that the first one who walked in was wearing a red sweatshirt. It had a sports team logo on it, they’re positive that this was the first person. The other statements all say differently. Most of them only got a good look of the red sweatshirt, because the other three were wearing black. I can confirm that the red sweatshirt was a universal recollection, but only one person says it was for a sports team. Most of these people are saying that the red sweatshirt was a maroon color, and had no affiliation on it.”

“Great so all we have is a red fucking sweatshirt,” Frank says, sounding bored.

Gerard rolls his eyes, “I asked for the security footage from the most recent robbery, as it’s the only one that had real surveillance. The first one had dummy cameras, and the other only had cameras in the parking lot, but the robbers parked in a blind spot. The footage should be here soon, because it’s morning and people will be working on it now. Maybe we’ll get somewhere with that.”

“Great,” Patrick says, because he knows he’s going to be the one who has to look through that.

“Maybe we’ll be able to find out what brand of sweatshirt that was,” Frank says condescendingly, “I really need to know. My own red sweatshirt is getting kind of old, I can buy a new one.”

“Shut up,” Gerard says standing up.

“Whoa, where are you going?” Frank asks.

“I’m going to visit the first two crime scenes,” Gerard says, “it’s my case now and I haven’t even seen where the first two bodies were.”

“I’m coming with you then,” Frank says, jumping up.

“Absolutely not.”

“You’re not going to stop me,” Frank says.

“You are not going to come with me,” Gerard says firmly.

“He really should,” Patrick says, “we’ve all looked through the files for the past eight hours. I think it’s safe to say that we know what we’re dealing with, but we haven’t actually seen the place for real.”

“Why does Frank have to come with me?” Gerard says, questioning for a moment whether he is or is not, in fact, the boss. He is, he’s in charge. He doesn’t _have_ to take Frank with him.

“Because he still isn’t acquainted with this job,” Patrick says, “listen, if he stays here, he’s only going to get in my way. I’m the one who has to look at all the security footage, I don’t need him distracting me, and I don’t mean that in a rude way, but I really don’t want him here.”

“But he’s going to get in my way,” Gerard says.

“Just, ugh, you’re going to have to get along sooner or later,” Patrick points out.

“Fine, jeez,” Gerard says, stomping his foot. Frank looks at him with a triumphant grin that Gerard really wants to slap off his face. What he wouldn’t give to hit this guy in the stomach or something. He’s literally a federal officer though, there’s no way he would be able to do that without getting into trouble. He does really want to hurt Frank though. Gerard kind of wants to avoid hurting Frank’s face, because he does have nice face but at the same time, his face is the only thing Frank’s got going for him so punching him would screw up his only worth.

“Patrick, while we’re out, and while you wait for the footage, I want you to get those cases on B and E’s. I want to figure out who our dead woman is.”

“Got it,” Patrick nods.

“By the way, if you cross me I’ll cut off your ear and feed it to a pigeon,” Gerard says to Frank before exiting the room. 

“Strangest threat I’ve ever received,” Frank says, but he follows behind Gerard.

Gerard doesn’t talk to Frank, or even look at him along the whole trip down the elevator. He just stares at the opposite wall and tries to pretend that Frank doesn’t exist. He’s hoping that if he wishes hard enough, Frank might just pop out of existence. It’s not working.

“You going to ignore me the whole way there?”

“Pretty much,” Gerard says when the doors open. Frank has to hurry behind Gerard to catch up to him. Gerard is walking quickly on purpose, Frank can tell, because the guy likes making short jokes. Really though, Gerard is not that much taller than Frank. Maybe a few inches, but it’s not like there’s a really huge difference.

About the time when Gerard and Frank are entering the parking garage is when Gerard’s phone rings. He groans and pulls out the phone, assuming it’s someone calling to tell him more about his case. Instead, he sees Mikey’s name in the caller ID.

“Why are you calling me so early?” Gerard asks as a greeting. Frank gives him a funny look, not knowing who’s on the other end, as they make their way to Gerard’s car. Frank and Gerard are not very good at coordinating, so Frank’s motorcycle is still parked where it was last night. They are going to have to get better at hiding these things, because they work with a bunch of detectives. Literally they work with people who solve mysteries for a living, and they’re not hiding their ‘relationship’ very well.

“Don’t try to pretend that you’re not awake,” Mikey replies.

“Alright, I won’t. How’d you know I was awake?”

“Well I was just eating breakfast and I see your face shooing away a journalist on my TV,” Mikey says.

“Fuck,” Gerard groans, “well that’s just fantastic.”

“It didn’t say anything more than just that you were heading the investigation,” Mikey says, “didn’t even say your name.”

“How’d they even know I’m the lead investigator?” Gerard says, “This wasn’t even my case until last night. Journalists are vultures. No consideration for the fact that a woman is dead.”

“Three people.”

“Don’t correct me on my own case,” Gerard says. He stops when they’re in front of his car but he doesn’t get in just yet. Gerard hears Frank groan loudly to annoy him which he is successful in accomplishing.

“I just thought you should know that you were on the news,” Mikey says, “so was Frank.”

“Frank was too?”

“What about me?” Frank asks, trying to look at Gerard from over the car, but just as he does so, Gerard opens his door and steps in. He doesn’t want to be in an enclosed space with Frank, but he’d rather not be here where everyone can eavesdrop on him.

“Just his face,” Mikey says.

“Frank, you didn’t say anything to the reporters did you?” Gerard asks when Frank steps into the car.

“No,” Frank says, looking confused by the question.

“Are you sure, because you do realize it’s illegal to talk about an ongoing investigation to the media. It’s called obstruction and I’m not afraid to charge someone on my own team with it.”

“I didn’t say anything!” Frank insists. Gerard sometimes hates that he’s good at profiling people, because he wants to believe Frank is lying so much, but he doesn’t see any amount of dishonesty in Frank’s face whatsoever. That’s a bummer because Gerard would love to get Frank suspended for a week or two.

“Whatever,” Gerard says, “I wish people in news were smart enough to realize that broadcasting my face doesn’t get me anywhere closer to finding my serial robbery ring.”

Mikey doesn’t have a proper response, he just says, “So if you’re working this case then does that mean you’re going to be busy?”

“When am I not busy?” Gerard asks.

“I don’t know, but we haven’t talked in a while. Basically ever since Frank joined your team,” Mikey says.

“Well that’s because I’ve been too busy focusing all my energy on not murdering Frank to talk to you. As soon as this case is over though, or maybe if we hit a dead end. Sorry, Mikey, this isn’t an easy job to maintain a social life with.”

“Yeah whatever,” Mikey says, “just go catch a murderer or whatever you’re doing.”

“Even more exciting than that,” Gerard replies sarcastically, “We’re going to go canvas an old crime scene so that we can split up and search for clues.”

“We? I’m assuming since I heard Frank’s voice, ‘we’ is you and him.”

“Cut it out, Mikey. We both know I hate Frank.”

“Excuse you,” Frank says.

“I’m a federal agent, I don’t lie,” Gerard says, “Just, um, Mikey, I’ll talk to you later. I want to get away from Frank as soon as I possibly can, and talking to you will prolong that.”

“Fine,” Mikey says, “But I’m going to avoid fancy restaurants until you find these guys.”

“Maybe not a bad idea,” Gerard says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh, I don’t really know how to say this or anything, because I wish I didn’t have to do this, as my coauthor for this series has been fantastic and I love her to pieces, but unfortunately, due to unforeseen and really shitty circumstances, I need to find a new coauthor. EDIT: position taken.


	4. The Walls Are Closing In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gerard likes old movies.

“So this is the most uninteresting crime scene I have ever seen,” Frank says.

“Well it’s not active right now is it?” Gerard replies. He looks at the restaurant, which isn’t very busy right now as it’s only lunch time and places like this usually fill up at dinner. All though it’s the kind of restaurant that wouldn’t be busy at six o’clock on a Friday because people who eat there like to eat fashionably late. A crouton at this place is a weeks’ worth of Gerard’s salary.

“So they just, like, keep going even after a guy died here?” Frank asks.

“Well what do you expect?”

“A little decency maybe for the dead guy,” Frank says.

“It’s a business,” Gerard shrugs, “they’ve got to keep going. Besides, the last robbery was almost a month ago. The grace period where you stay closed is only so long.”

“May I help you two?” a waiter asks, walking up to them.

“Uh, yeah,” Gerard says, reaching into his pocket and showing the man his badge, “I’m Special Agent Way and I’m here to ask you a few questions about the robbery that took place a month ago.”

“Um, we’ve already told the other guys what happened already,” the guy says.

“Yeah, well I’m not the other guy, I’m a fed, and I would just like you to repeat what happened that night. I’m sure you’ve heard about the third robbery on the news, I’m following up on that.”

“Yeah, uh, I wasn’t working that night, but I’ll get Danny, he was waiting the guys table,” the guy says, walking back, looking uncomfortable. 

“So what do we do then?” Frank asks.

“You are so stupid,” Gerard says, shaking his head, “We just ask him what he remembers. He’s going to say something like ‘I’ve already told you guys’ and then we’re going to say ‘but we’d like you to repeat it one last time for us’ and then he’s going to say um a lot and we’ll have to contain the need to roll our eyes.”

“You’re cynical.”

“I’ve heard enough statements, it gets old, but I want to hear it firsthand. I’ve always found it important to be where the crime happened.”

“Waiting for the ghost to talk to you and tell you what happened?” Frank snorts.

“No, I just think it’s an important atmosphere to be familiar with.”

“Whatever,” Frank says, when a guy dressed in the same boring white shirt as the other guy heads towards them. He’s about twenty, looks a little frazzled, but that’s a look Gerard’s used to as well.

“I uh, I told the other cops already,” the guy says and Gerard looks at Frank with an ‘I told you so’ glimmer in his eyes.

“Yes, I understand that, but the people you talked to are no longer on the case. I want to hear you clarify what you recall from the event,” Gerard says.

“Can you show us where the guy died?” Frank asks, and Gerard really does have to resist rolling his eyes but it’s _Frank_ who’s annoying him.

“Yeah, I guess,” the guy says, and he beckons the two of them to follow where he’s going. They walk through the main part of the restaurant which is as boringly fancy as every other restaurant in the world. It’s extremely glamorous but not very exciting.

They walk over to the window near the back of the restaurant and the guy points to a table. Gerard looks at the carpet rather than table, studying it for traces that someone died there.

“So you replaced the carpet?” Gerard asks when he doesn’t see any blood.

“Had to,” the waiter replies. The other man had said his name was Danny. Gerard recalls reading that man’s name giving his statement in one of the files.

“I see,” Gerard says, “so, can you tell me if the man was with anyone when he died?”

“He, uh, he wasn’t with anyone,” Danny the waiter says.

“So a guy was just sitting alone in this big fancy restaurant on a Saturday night?” Frank asks skeptically, “That’s kind of extremely sad.”

“This is a table for two,” Gerard says, counting the two chairs. “Is this the same table the man sat at? I mean to say, were there two place settings when he was here?”

The waiter looks off for a second, trying to remember that night, “I think so. It’s a different table, I can tell you that, but I think it was set up the same way.”

“Okay,” Gerard nods, “and I’m guessing that this man made a reservation or am I incorrect?”

“I don’t remember. I could check the database for you?” the waiter says.

“Yes, do that,” Gerard nods, “give me a name if you have one? Now, can I ask, who was it that seated this man? I’m presuming there was a host who put the man in your section?”

“Yeah,” Danny says, “that’ll be my manager.”

“And is your manager here today?”

“Yeah, he’s in his office,” the waiter replies, “should I get him too?”

“Please do,” Gerard says, as he looks around the table for a moment. Frank is staring at him curiously.

“I think the reservation name was in the file,” Frank says.

“Yeah, but I want to make sure we’re getting our information directly from the source.”

They wait for a few minutes, looking at the table and relaying what the file had said about where the body was. They’ve got a few peeping toms from some people sitting across the restaurant, but they don’t look threatening, just curious. 

“The name we have for the reservation is Marty Balsam,” the waiter says, returning not long after he’d left.

“What was that?”

“Marty Balsam, sir,” Danny the waiter says.

“Really?” Gerard asks, looking really confused.

“Yes.”

Frank looks at Gerard, “What is it?”

“It’s just... I think I’ve heard that name before,” Gerard says, shaking his head. “I just can’t place where.”

“Probably the case file,” Frank says.

Gerard shakes his head, but doesn’t respond. He’s pretty sure that’s not where he remembers it from, but right now there’s a mental block in the way of helping him figure out what he’s thinking.

“This is my manager, here,” the waiter says when a man walks over to Gerard. He looks bored, and unhelpful, and Gerard suspects that he won’t be of much help because of that, but he’d still like to hear him out.

“What do you want now?” the manager asks grumpily.

“I want to know if you remember what the deceased man who was killed here said to you?” Gerard asks, “Specifically, did he say if he was meeting someone, and if so, did he ask you whether the person he was meeting had arrived yet?”

The manager sighs and says, “I think he was meeting someone, or at least, I believe that’s what he’d said. I don’t remember if he’d asked me about whether the other party had shown up or not though.”

Gerard nods and starts to head for the door, “Thank you both, I think we’ve got what we came here for.”

“We do?” Frank asks, running after Gerard.

“Yes Frank, we do,” Gerard replies, rolling his eyes.

“Uh, okay?” Frank says, and Gerard can tell he’s still brimming to ask more questions when they step out of the restaurant and into the crisp air, blowing wind into their faces. Gerard heads towards his car, with Frank jogging to catch up behind him.

“Are you going to explain what your suspicion is?”

“How do you know I have a suspicion?” Gerard asks.

“Because the look on your face is giving it away,” Frank says. He finally catches up to Gerard after he’s opened the car door and sat down. Frank groans, and takes his spot in the passenger’s seat. Gerard grabs some of the files that they’d brought with them from the office, and he starts to look through them.

“What’re you looking for?” Frank asks.

“Well the manager essentially confirmed it for me,” Gerard says.

“What? That old windbag actually _helped_ you?”

“Yep,” Gerard says, flipping through a stack of papers.

“What did he tell you then?”

“Well the victims were all lured there,” Gerard says, “that’s obvious now.”

“It is?” Frank asks.

“Yes,” Gerard says, looking at Frank with a judgmental glare like he’s being an idiot. Gerard thinks of him as such though.

“Well spill why then!”

“Fine,” Gerard says groaning, taking a break from searching through files for a moment to look at Frank.

“So we know that our three victims were alone in big fancy restaurants, and we can pretty much assume that they were lured there because of the fact that they were waiting for someone else to show up. I believe the reservation had been made in advance by our robbers, because they wanted to get the victims to those exact locations.”

“So they planted the dead people there with the full intention that they would kill them at those places?” Frank asks.

“Correct.”

“And what does the name they used on the reservation have to do with anything?” Frank asks.

“Well,” Gerard says, “With any luck, it’ll mean everything.”

“You’ve lost me.”

Gerard just looks back down at his files. He doesn’t say anything for an incredibly long couple of minutes. He just looks down, surveying each page like he’s an x-ray. Frank watches, waiting for Gerard to say something.

“Here!” Gerard says. He’s pointing to a name in the middle of a report.

“Okay, what’d you find?”

“The name for the second reservation. This is the reservation where our real estate agent died. The real estate agent was named James Knightly. The reservation is for a J. Fiedler.”

“Okay?” Frank asks.

“Well,” Gerard says, grabbing a different file from the stack resting on his legs, “if you look through this file you should find that our third victim was at the restaurant under the reservation of L.J. Cobb, or something similar.”

Frank draws his eyebrows together, and looks through the file that Gerard had been holding out. He finds the right page quicker than Gerard had, and he reads the name Lee Cobb from the words before him. The woman who died last night was indeed using the reservation under that name.

“So what, you memorized the names of the reservations?” Frank says, “Is that supposed to impress me?”

Gerard, who’d had a big smile like he’d just figured out some big puzzle that no one else could figure out, drops the expression to look at Frank like he’s a complete buffoon.

“Really?” Gerard asks, “I mean I get that you don’t know one or two, but _none_ of those names is ringing a bell to you?”

“No... should they?” Frank asks.

Gerard just groans, and grabs his phone from his pocket. Frank looks at him because he’s fairly sure now is a weird time to start playing Angry Birds. Frank is totally out of the loop though, and it’s making Gerard think he’s better than him.

A minute later, Gerard is shoving the phone screen under Frank’s nose and pointing. Frank looks down and the last thing he expects to see is an IMDb page, but that doesn’t change what meets his eyes when he finally focuses them on the too-bright screen.

“Okay?”

“Frank,” Gerard says groaning out his name like he’s such an idiot, but it’s a very familiar tone to him. 

“What?” Frank asks.

“Look at the credits on the page!” Gerard says, “It’s so obvious. I think they’re sending us a message! They probably think we’re too stupid to figure it out, but little do they know that I am way too into old movies.”

Frank looks down at the page and scrolls down a little more until he sees three names that stick out to him. Martin Balsam, John Fielder, and Lee J. Cobb.

“Whoa, these are the names that the reservations were under!” Frank says.

“Yeah, now you’re getting it,” Gerard says, shaking his head. 

Frank scrolls back up, and then looks at Gerard curiously, “so, uh, they’re using the names of the actors who played the characters in this film?” 

Gerard nods, “yep, and I think the message is in what film they chose. 12 Angry Men.”

“I’ve never seen it,” Frank says.

“Well, I’ll tell you what knowledge we can take from this,” Gerard replies, grabbing his phone back from Frank, “We can reasonably estimate that there will definitely be more murders. I would say that there’s going to be at least nine more.”

“Nine?”

“Yep,” Gerard confirms, “one for every angry man.”

“Okay,” Frank says, not liking how giant a number that nine is considering they’re talking about people’s lives. “So what else do we know then?”

“Well I think we figured out our motive. Or at least, we know how all of our victims are connected.”

“And how do we know that?”

“Well, Frank, do you know why the men were angry?”

“No,” Frank shakes his head, sure he’d just told Gerard he’s never seen this movie.

“They were on a jury.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh, I got a new coauthor and then she deleted her email account and AO3 account and now I have no way of contacting her. Don't know why, hoping it wasn't because of me, but oh well. So it looks like, from here on in, I'm on my own. Just me now, I believe. I think I'm just going to be without a coauthor, so... *sings On My Own from Les Miserables*


	5. You Try To Switch it Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm really not proud of the quality of this chapter, but at least I'm updating at all.

“This had better be good, I think we caught a break,” Gerard says when he picks up his phone.

“Well, you’re about to catch another one. I found out who Jane Doe is,” Patrick replies.

“You did not,” Gerard says gleefully, “Patrick, I love you. Who is it?”

“Her name is Magnolia Kent.”

“That’s a pretty unique name,” Gerard says.

“Yep, you were write about your hunch though. We found her because the landlord reported a break in. I’m sending her address to your phone now,” Patrick says.

“Great. You’re perfect.”

“I know,” Patrick responds, “So what have you got for me then? What’s your break?”

“I’m fairly sure that all of our victims were on a jury,” Gerard states.

“A jury?” Patrick asks.

“Yep,” Gerard replies.

“Why do you suppose that?”

“The names that the reservations were under correspond to the actors from the movie 12 Angry Men. They were all in order as well. Our first death was Juror number one, and so on. I believe this means that the people being killed are specifically being murdered because of a jury they were on. If this idea is true though, that means we likely won’t have clearance to finding out precisely what jury that is, because nothing came up when we searched through the second victim’s record, which leads me to believe that it was a big trial. Something that would put these people into danger were their identities revealed.”

“Wow. I never would’ve put that together. So, if I’m correct the next murder will take place under the name of the next angry man? Right?”

“Yep,” Gerard says. “Marshall. That’s the name we need to keep our eyes on. Can you run some sort of program to find any reservations for an E.G. Marshall?”

“I’m not a tech wizard. I’ll look into it, but I’m not sure how successful this is going to be. I’ll give it a whack though. I’ll see what I can do about finding out what jury they were on as well. I’m not so sure this’ll be easy, Gerard.”

“Do whatever you can to find out then,” Gerard says. “I don’t want to lose another nine people.”

“No, I don’t either.”

“Then let’s go,” Gerard says, “talk to you later, Patrick.”

Patrick makes a noise of affirmation before he hangs up the phone. Frank is looking at him when Gerard turns his head.

“So he found the address of the latest victim?” Frank asks.

“Yes,” Gerard says, looking through his phone to find the text from Patrick with the address. 

“Are we heading over there?” Frank asks.

Gerard just nods, finding the address in his messages, “I know where this is. Let’s go.”

Frank sighs, but buckles his belt a second before Gerard’s pulling the car out of their spot, and pulling onto the road. The woman’s apartment building isn’t too far from where the restaurant is, so they’re quiet for most of the trip there.

“How did you know there would be signs of a break in if they stole the woman’s keys? Wouldn’t the keys make it look less like a break in?” Frank asks.

“I had enough faith in how chaotic the crime scenes are to figure out that they’d leave the apartments in the same way. These guys are very good at keeping themselves under the radar and because of this they’re too confident in their own skills to be careful. I didn’t think they’d expect us to know that we’d check for breaking and entering.”

“What about the second victim though? We knew who he was, so obviously we’d check his apartment. How come I haven’t seen a file on his place being burglarized?” Frank asks.

“He didn’t have a listed residence. We’re not sure where that guy was living.”

“Alright,” Frank says, and, he keeps himself quiet they pull into the parking lot of the woman’s building. She lived in a fairly fancy place. That’s probably why it was so easy to find her. She’d looked like she was rich at the restaurant and he building reflects that.

Gerard groans when he sees the black and white cars parked out in front of the building, because he is not in the mood to handle dealing with cops right now.

“Not again,” Gerard says, pulling himself out of the car while Frank does the same.

“What’s with the fucking animosity between cops and feds?” Frank asks.

“They don’t like us taking over their cases, and we don’t like them contaminating our crime scenes. Besides, they don’t have nearly as high a closure rate as we do.”

“Oh yeah? What’s your closure rate?” Frank asks.

“That’s not important,” Gerard says.

“Have you ever been unable to catch a killer?” Frank asks, following Gerard up the stairs to the building. 

“We can’t catch ‘em all, Frank,” Gerard says sadly.

The door has been left ajar by a rock, probably by the cops, so Gerard just enters into the upper class looking place. The lobby is elegant and grandeur, nothing like the place Gerard lives. There’s a man who’s standing beside the door, who doesn’t even get to ask what they’re doing there before Gerard flashes him his badge.

“The rest of your people are already up there,” the man, who Gerard assumes is some sort of doorman, says.

“They’re not my team, and I’ll have them escorted out soon,” Gerard says. The doorman doesn’t look at all interested, he just waves a hand in the direction of the stairs.

There’s an elevator next to the steps, but the woman only lived on the third floor, so Gerard decides to head for the steps instead.

“What floor?” Frank asks, following behind him.

“Three.”

Frank doesn’t respond, just follows behind Gerard. He also stares at Gerard’s ass a little bit, but it’s hard not to when you’re going up the stairs. And it’s also totally intentional. 

“This is it,” Gerard says when they’re standing in front of the door to the dead woman’s apartment, also ajar.

“Excuse me,” Gerard says as he enters the apartment, “I’m taking over this investigation.”

Gerard recognizes the big tuft of curly hair the instant he sees him, and rolls his eyes obnoxiously as the cop walks over to him.

“So you’re intruding on my crime scene again, are you?”

“Fuck you,” Gerard says, “and may I ask why it is that you consider this your crime scene, _detective_.”

The man falters, Gerard thinks his name is Ray. Gerard’s not an idiot though, he knows a detective should have no reason to be at the crime scene of a simple robbery, unless he’s aware that this isn’t just the regular robbery of a high class woman.

“I was in the neighborhood,” he says.

“Sure you were,” Gerard replies sarcastically, “next time you decide to keep working on a case that isn’t yours, I will report you. Got that?”

“I told you he was a bitch,” Frank whispers to Ray. 

“You shut up,” Gerard says, “and you, take your officers and get out of my crime scene.”

“Whatever you say,” Ray says, gritting his teeth as he beckons for the two uniforms to leave. Gerard can tell he’s either flipping him off behind his back or sticking his tongue out.

“Frank, you canvas the neighbors,” Gerard instructs, as he begins to walk into the apartment. 

“What?” Frank asks.

Gerard rolls his eyes and turns around to look at Frank, “You’re so stupid. Go ask the neighbors if they saw anything, and what it is they saw. Also ask them about what kind of person our vic was.”

“What’s her name? You never told me,” Frank asks, heading back to the front door of the apartment.

“Magnolia Kent,” Gerard responds.

Frank nods and walks back out of the apartment. He walks over to the first door on the right, knocks and waits. No one answers the door and he doesn’t hear anyone moving around either, so he just moves onto the neighbor across the hall.

When he knocks on the door he hears someone moving around and then the door opens, and he’s facing a woman in her mid-forties wearing a bathrobe. Frank feels like he’s imposing on something. He’s decided that he doesn’t enjoy this part of the job. 

“Hi, I’m uh,” Frank stumbles, and then reaches into his pocket for his badge, “I’m Special Agent Frank Iero, I’d like to ask you a few questions about the woman who lives across from you?”

“Yeah, sure. Is she in trouble?” the woman asks.

“Actually, she was murdered last night,” Frank says, not knowing how to put it any way that isn’t blunt.

“Oh, oh my,” the woman says, frowning, “Was she killed here?”

“No,” Frank assures, “but we do believe her apartment was broken into.”

“Oh yes,” the woman nods, “I heard about that. What do you need to know?”

“Were you well acquainted with her?”

“Not particularly. We didn’t talk much.”

“Do you know if she’d had any visitors? She lived alone, right?”

“As far as I know,” the woman says. “Can’t recall anyone visiting, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t any.”

“Were you at home last night? Did you by any chance see who broke in?”

“No, I wasn’t in last night.”

“Okay,” Frank nods, “Is there anything helpful you can tell me about your neighbor?”

“I’m afraid not,” she says, “I really didn’t know her that well.”

“Alright, that’s fine,” Frank says. He then proceeds to get her name and number in case he needs to reach her, recalling that from a textbook he’d read not too long ago. Frank moves on to the next neighbor, receiving basically the same answers. None of the people here seem to have known the victim very well at all. They don’t seem to be ones for sharing. 

Frank makes his way back into the apartment, where he finds Gerard with a pad of paper looking around the way too fancy living room. This is the kind of apartment building that you’d actually expect to see people rob. Not because it’s easy to access, but because there’s way too many expensive things in here. 

“She’s missing a lot of shit,” Gerard says when he sees Frank.

“So are you. Like your brain,” Frank says.

“Yeah whatever,” Gerard says. “Did the neighbors tell you anything?”

“No one really knew her.”

“A recluse? That doesn’t surprise me. I’d be too, if I had as many DVD’s as she does.”

“Would you maybe stop looking at a dead woman’s movie collection and focus on the fact that she’s dead and her murderers are still out there?”

“I was just saying,” Gerard shrugs. “Whatever. Let’s head out.”

“That’s it?” Frank asks. “We barely even looked around!”

“I’ll send out people who’ll do a more thorough search,” Gerard says, “and we need to figure out more about this jury. Priorities, Frank.”

“I fucking hate you. That’s priority one,” Frank murmurs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry that this chapter is so awfully written. This is why I wanted a coauthor for this story, but now I'm on my own and it just really depresses me to have to write this by myself.


	6. There's Hands Around Your Neck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gerard's on the edge of a panic attack.

Gerard sits in his office staring at the computer screen, but seeing nothing. He doesn’t hear much of anything, he’s not thinking at all, and all he’s actually seeing is the light of the screen against his eyes. He’s not absorbing any of the information that he’s trying to look at. The only thing he’s really aware of is the fact that his head seems to be on fire. 

“Gerard?” someone says, knocking on the glass door. Gerard looks up and he can tell from the tone of voice that he’s catching Patrick after multiple repeated addresses of his attention. He hasn’t been paying any mind, he hasn’t heard anything. If anything, Gerard’s concentrating on not throwing up, which is weird because he doesn’t really need to throw up. That’s not what he’s feeling. It’s a different sort of sensation, somewhere in the bottom of his stomach, and he understands that it’s unsettling, he understands that it’s uncomfortable, but what he doesn’t understand is what ‘it’ even is. He just knows he doesn’t like it, whatever it is.

“Yes? Sorry, what were you saying?” 

“Nothing really,” Patrick says, “I just looked over the file you gave me and followed up on the lead, but it was a dead end.”

“Oh, right, okay,” Gerard says, not fully understanding what he, himself, is saying. He doesn’t remember what he’d asked Patrick to do, and honestly, he doesn’t really care either. His heads not in the right space to be thinking about this right now. The only thing his head is well suited for at the moment is probably being unconscious.

Gerard hasn’t slept in a very long time though. When he totals it all up, it’s probably been around 28 hours since he last slept. He’s used to pulling multiple all-nighters at a time but it doesn’t make him feel any better about it. He wishes that he’d gotten some sleep last night before he was called in, but Frank was over and things just got blurred. Priorities didn’t seem to be all that imperative, and he’d expected to have time to himself after Frank and he were... done. 

“Excuse me for saying this, but you don’t look great, Gerard,” Patrick says, still standing in the doorway.

“What? Oh, yeah, just... haven’t slept,” Gerard says.

“Well none of us have,” Patrick says, “but you look a lot worse than Frank or I, no offense.”

“What’s Frank doing anyway?” Gerard asks, trying to take the topic off of him and onto insulting Frank, which is one of his favorite things to do.

“He’s looking through some security footage that I don’t have the time to look through,” Patrick says. “Is there something else you want him working on?”

“No, I don’t think so. I was just curious. I’m, uh, not certain what there is for us to do right now though,” Gerard says, “have we gotten anything back from ballistics on the bullet at the most recent crime scene?”

“Not yet, but preliminaries say that it’s a 9mm, same as the other two.”

“Okay, well tell me when we know anything more,” Gerard says. “I should get some coffee.”

“Yeah, coffee or some sleep,” Patrick says.

“No, I should stay in, I don’t want to bail on you-”

“But we’ve all been up for hours and you’re honestly no good to us when you’re functioning like that. I mean, you’re not doing anything, really. You haven’t done anything but stare at your computer since you and Frank got back.”

“We’re already a man down with Hayley gone, and Brendon’s out because he needed sleep way more than I did. I’m not just going to leave you two by yourselves.”

Patrick shrugs, “it’s not up to me, ultimately. You just aren’t going to get anywhere if you burn the candle at both ends.”

“Save your clichés for later, Patrick,” Gerard says.

The blonde raises his eyebrows and, with a tired sigh, turns on his heel towards the direction of the hallway. “Alright, Gerard. I can’t tell you what to do, but if you’re going to stay, at least try to be productive; else your efforts will be a waste.”

Gerard, too far gone to snap back or even respond at all, simply nods and slumps his shoulders, placing a heavy head in his hands. He doesn’t hear Patrick walk away, or the exasperated sigh that escapes his lips, or the quiet explanation he gives to a curious Frank in the other room. In the depths of his slow-moving brain, he registers that it’s suddenly very cold and that he’s shaking. Rather violently, actually. Gerard is shivering so hard that his tailbone is being driven into the cushioned office chair and his elbows are moving all over the place on the hard wood of the desk. Somewhere, he digs the word ‘coffee!’ out of his brain muck, and remembers, ‘Yes, coffee is warm, coffee will keep you awake.’

A few moments later, even though Gerard distinctly remembers thinking ‘I don’t want to be awake, I don’t want to stand up,’ he finds himself standing hunched over the coffee maker, waiting for it to finish its duties. He’s going through the motions, and he can’t even remember how he found it in himself to get into this room, let alone start making coffee. His head is pounding so hard that he can’t hear, and he feels very sick. There’s an icy pit in his stomach, and it’s making his whole being feel heavy. Gerard’s head is buzzing with cruel thoughts and drowsiness and nerves and random dark thoughts and memories of violence, and where is he again?

“Gerard! _Gerard_!” a familiar voice shatters Gerard’s thoughts, piercing his tender brain and making him wince. He turns over his shoulder to see a small figure crossing its arms and looking annoyed. Gerard blinks once before registering that he’s in the office break room. His name is Gerard, and that figure has a pretty nice face. Not a second later Gerard realizes that the figure is Frank, and he is immediately disgusted that his first thoughts regarding him were positive. Gerard’s face reveals these thoughts, and he turns back around towards the coffee maker. He’s self-aware and isn’t swimming anymore, but his head is still pounding and he’s still going to be sick.

“What do you want?” His voice sounds slurred and hoarse, and muddled in his ears. 

“Well ideally I want my boss to stop being a prick, but I assume you want to know what I want in the immediate future, because we both know that that’s not going to happen anytime soon.”

“I don’t really have time for this right now, Frank,” Gerard says. He’s only vaguely aware of the coffee maker lurching to a halt, and he also knows that he’s now going to have to make an effort to get the liquid from the pot into a mug that he has to go retrieve, and it all sounds like way too much effort. He’s trying to remember why they don’t employ someone solely for the transport of coffee because it sounds entirely too arduous. 

“Time? You’re not even fucking doing anything!” Frank says, “Like you haven’t done a damn thing since we got back.”

“Maybe I have other things to do, Frank,” Gerard says.

“Like what?”

“I have some paperwork to fill out from the last case, okay? And reports I’ve got to write on you guys,” Gerard says, spouting off whatever comes to his head that sounds like a plausible excuse for not working. He doesn’t have an enormous backlog of paperwork at the moment though, and he does have some reports to do specifically on Frank, and his progress so far, but he can’t fill them out presently because of the fact that Frank hasn’t worked with him long enough yet.

“If that’s the case then why were you just sitting in your office staring at your screen? You’re not actually doing anything, and we both know that.”

“Would you just back off?” Gerard asks, unaware of how he manages to find himself holding his mug a moment later which threatens to burn his fingers from the hot coffee inside it.

“Why should I? You haven’t gotten any less sleep than Patrick or I, but you’re acting like a giant baby about it.”

“I don’t need this right now,” Gerard says, walking out of the room and back to his office. He’s aware of Frank following him, but he direly hopes it’s because Frank intends to go back to his cubicle. His cubicle is just outside Gerard’s office so it’s always possible that that’s the reason.

Frank just follows him through the transparent doors to Gerard’s office though, and he can feel himself being suffocated by the pressure of it. He feels like someone’s tied a noose around his neck and they’re squeezing it tighter with every breath he takes. On top of that, the feeling in his stomach like he’s going to be sick any second now hasn’t let up. He’s starting to feel a bristly feeling in his fingertips like little bees buzzing around him, and it’s only adding to the headache that’s driving him off the wall.

“Would you please leave?” Gerard asks, “I know for a fact that you can’t be done looking through those security tapes.”

“If you’re not working than why should I?”

“Because I’m your boss and I just told you to,” Gerard says.

“Are you really though? Or are you just my supervisor?” 

“I’m the guy who can recommend for your transfer, or, if you really piss me off, you’re dismissal,” Gerard says, “which is just a fancy way of saying that all I need to do is a little persuading to get your ass fired.”

“You don’t have that much power and we both know that,” Frank says, rife with snark.

“Whatever my degree of power, I am still your superior, and I’m telling you to leave my office and get back to what you were doing,” Gerard says, sitting down at last, and relieving the shakiness in his ankles like they’re about to give in. He sets his coffee down, feeling it spill out over the edge and he knows that it drips onto some document that he really doesn’t care about. It’ll make a ring on his desk if he just leaves it there, but Gerard just isn’t in the head space to care. He’s having trouble thinking more than one thing at once, and the thing at the top of his head right now is ‘sleep.’

“You’re such a jerk,” Frank says, shaking his head, but at least Gerard’s successful in getting him out of his office. 

Frank rolls his eyes heavily and walks briskly from the office, and Gerard feels a tiny ounce of relief. At least that’s one problem done with. Without the pestering of his coworkers, he can at least be miserable in peace.

With a quivering breath, the dark-haired man gathers what little strength he has to lift a hand and place it on the mouse. Though Gerard may feel like a corpse, there’s still work to be done, and Patrick’s right. If he’s going to stay here, he might as well do something. Feeling as though there’s something metal chained to his arm, he manages to drag the mouse over to open some of the digital case files. Once they’re open, Gerard blinks quite a few times against the brightness of the screen, and tries in vain to make sense of the microscopic words. Most of it just looks like a jumbled mess that hurts his eyes and, upon realizing that Gerard won’t be able to get any real work done at this point, another wave of nausea hits him, and he lowers his head so that a curtain of greasy hair covers his face. Gerard is _really_ sure that he’s going to be sick, and he finds himself with his forehead pressed against the cold of his desk. The cold takes a bit of the edge off, easing the feeling that he’s heating up to the temperature of the sun, but that’s about all it does. It doesn’t actually make anything better.

Gerard’s feeling like he can’t escape the horrid buzzing of his head. He’s remembering things, really unpleasant things, and he’s thinking about how slow the case seems to be moving, even if in reality it really isn’t, and he’s feeling pretty low. He wants to close his eyes and never have to open them again, but he can’t. Because he’s still here, feeling useless. However, if he goes home, he’ll feel even more useless because he won’t even _look_ like he’s making an effort.

It’s maybe ten minutes later, and Gerard hasn’t moved, but he’s come to the decision that he can’t stay here. If he does, he’ll end up vomiting and passing out underneath his desk, which _surely_ won’t go over well in any case. On jelly-like legs, Gerard stands and pulls his coat on. He doesn’t even touch his desk or gather anything before dragging himself through the glass doors, hunched over with his hair as a shield. He ignores Frank’s and Patrick’s eyes following him through the hall, or more accurately, he doesn’t even notice them. Gerard presses the “down” button heavily and leans his head on the wall next to the reflective doors. It seems no matter where he is, he cannot escape the sickness and dark, looming thoughts consuming him.

“What, are you punking out on us?” Gerard can hear the sneer in Frank’s voice, but can’t pull together the energy to reply. “Why are you being such a whiny baby, Gerard? Patrick and I have had just as much sleep as you, if not less.” Gerard shuts his eyes and wonders why the elevator won’t just ding already. “And why the hell do you keep ignoring everyone? You’re being incredibly rude. Is it that time of the month already?”

“Frank, please,” Patrick mutters, attempting to keep the peace as always. Although, he doesn’t seem very enthusiastic about defending the damaged superior either. “You’re behaving like you’re two right now.” Gerard doesn’t hear them. He hears roaring in his ears and little demon voices telling him horrible things. And eventually, _blissfully_ , he hears the elevator ding. 

“What, you’re seriously just abandoning us?” Frank asks, as Gerard steps into the elevator, still not talking to him. “I cannot believe this.”

“Just let it be, Frank,” Patrick calls at him.

“You’re seriously such a hypocrite,” Frank says, shaking his head, but he just lets Gerard stand there, and watches silently as the doors close.

He stands in the spot, feeling the floor that’s not as firm or as grounded as he would like it to be, and he watches the doors slide closed after a few seconds in front of him. He watches Frank disappear behind the silver doors, and part of him feels insatiably guilty, but the rest of him isn’t even capable of describing how much of a break it gives his racing heart. Gerard takes a large sigh of relief, like he’s just escaped some painful death at the hand of Frank, when in reality, all he actually has right now is a staler version of the quiet that Frank was interrupting. 

He can feel the pull of the elevator messing with the delicate balance keeping his insides from needing to be puked out. It makes him feel a lot worse for all of a decade, or that’s what he thinks it must be, because he suddenly can’t remember a time when he wasn’t in this elevator. It has to be years since the elevator doors closed, any less sounds impossible, yet it’s only been a couple of seconds.

Gerard can feel a cold sweat breaking out over his body like fire and ice. He’s not sure if he wants to rip off all his clothes and take a cold shower, or if he needs the heat of a dozen blankets and soup.

He’s going to be home soon. He’ll be able to lie down and let his head cloud up for a couple of hours, hopefully he won’t have to think about anything. He can just lie there and pretend he doesn’t have a job for a little while. Maybe he can pretend he doesn’t have a life for a little while too. Or pretend Frank’s not in his life. He’ll definitely have to pretend that he can’t smell Frank on the sheets.

That’s what keeps Gerard going when the doors open again in front of him, and he walks quickly through the lobby. He’s never been the kind of person who makes friends with the secretaries or really anybody that he works with, because he’s found that it just gets in the way of the job. He’s made a few exceptions, and it’s easier to be friends with someone when they’re on your team, like Brendon, but then there’s the fact that every once and a while you get a Frank.

Gerard hasn’t worked this job long enough to see too many people like Frank, and he’s glad of that much to say the least.

When he steps out into the parking garage, he’s caught in his inability to understand how his feet are knowing where to walk when he’s this dead on them. He’s really not even controlling himself right now, it’s all just some sort of learned reflex of him to walk through the parking garage to the same spot that he almost always gets when he parks his car. He once tried to park closer to the entrance because the space was available, but it took him about twenty minutes to find his car when he did that, because he’s so used to being against the back wall of the garage, the part that has a little opening where you can look down at the street below. There’s not much outside of that gap that could be classified as a window if it weren’t already outside. Someone once figured out that it’s an extremely thriving business to have a coffee shop directly next to an FBI building, and ever since then, there’s always a place to buy coffee near any place that employs law enforcement.

Gerard gets to his car, having lost a minute of his life just allowing his brain to wonder off. It’s a wonder he didn’t get run over or something. That brings up the question of whether he should really be driving, but he’s here now, and he’s not going to turn back. He’s just going to keep going, and be as attentive as he can. Driving is just a second nature to him by now. He might run into a lunchtime rush hour, but he doesn’t live that far away, so it should be doable.

He sees that dumbass motorcycle parked not far across the garage from his car and he just hates looking at it. He hates knowing who it belongs to, he hates that there’s something hot about people who drive motorcycles, and most of all, he hates Frank. That’s just the way he feels. He hates it so much, and he wants it to fall into a tar pit, never to be seen again. And he also wouldn’t mind seeing Frank fall into that very same tar pit.

Gerard unlocks the car tiredly, and he forces his brain to stay focused, and not blip in and out of conscious thought like it has been doing. His mind seems to like screwing him over today, but he’s just got to force himself not to get distracted. All he needs to do is get home, turn his phone off, and fall asleep for hopefully the rest of his life. He also should focus on not puking, because that’s growing to be a real fear of his right now. 

About fifteen minutes later, Gerard, somehow still alive, though barely, stumbles into his small apartment. He's hardly even reached the bedroom before he sees his bed and an overwhelming wave of relief washes over him. Following this, he instantly changes his course to the bathroom, where he throws up pretty violently. He stands over the toilet, heaving, and gets sick again. 

When Gerard's finished and his limbs feel like jelly, he shakily washes out his mouth and shuffles into the bedroom. His knees buckle, and he falls face-first onto his bed. Gerard's asleep before his head hits the pillow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the good news is that I have finally found a new coauthor! The bad news is that this chapter took too long to write and I apologize for that.


	7. Here I Am Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Return to work.

It's around six o'clock the next evening when Gerard finally wakes up, and the first thing he notices is how strongly his sheets smell of Frank. It's a little startling, like, maybe he's not even sleeping in his own bed. He blinks a little and looks around, but yeah, this is his place. That kinda sucks, he thinks slowly. I thought home was supposed to be where I could escape from him. 

Then he realizes a dull ache in his head and stomach and he squints, trying to remember the previous day. Or, rather, whenever he was last awake. Gerard can't remember much, except for vomiting at some point, and getting yelled at by Frank by the elevator. Eventually he realizes that he must've had a breakdown. That's not good. He tries to remember how long it took him to realize that he needed to be at home and away from the world. Nothing really registers though, so he ends up just covering his face with his hands. 

He's still in all his clothes, even his shoes. That's really not good. Gerard just sighs again and pushes the covers aside, kicking off his shoes, pants, and shirt so that he's just in his boxers, and curls onto his side back under the covers. He falls asleep again almost instantly.

At nine o’clock PM is when Gerard wakes up to the phone ringing.

“H’llo…?” the dark-haired man mumbles, still curled under the covers and not entirely awake. The aching is a lot less apparent now, he realizes groggily. Maybe he's getting better.

“Gerard.”

“Mmmmh, Mikey,” Gerard says stuffily, uncurling and stretching himself out under the covers. Slowly, the gears in Gerard’s brain start turning again, and his eyes flick to the time.

“I’ve been calling you for the past hour.”

By the time Gerard figures out that he should answer back to Mikey, he’s already concluded that he should probably go back into the office.

“Sorry, Mikes, was sleepin’,” He exhales dramatically through his nose. “What’s up?”

“…Just checking in. You doing okay?” Gerard sighs and lies to Mikey, who still seems skeptical, but lets it go. They talk lightly for a while, and Gerard sits up after a little bit. Mikey is really comforting to Gerard, whose mind still isn’t perfectly intact.

“Hey Mikes, I should probably be heading out,” Gerard says.

“What? It’s after nine at night!”

“Crime never sleeps, and I’m going to have a backload,” he groans, “I’ve been asleep for way too long.”

“That an excuse to get rid of me?” Mikey asks.

“Hey, I love you a lot, dearest brother, but I do actually have a job that I have literally been away from for like way too long. I don’t want to think about how long it’s been. Man, Frank’s gonna chew me out.”

“You’re his boss though?” Mikey says.

“You don’t know Frank the way I do. He’s a bastard.”

“Who you’re attracted to.”

“I’m also attracted to Denzel Washington but I don’t root for him in Training Day.”

“Okay, you’ve really got to stop comparing your life to movies.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Well, Gerard, in case you didn’t know, movies are not real life. That’s why you never see spaceships flying around the world and why the human population has not been wiped out by some mysterious virus,” Mikey says.

“Yes, ugh. Okay, I’m going to go, alright? You can stop worrying about me or whatever.”

“I never stop worrying, Gerard. You’re job literally entails being around people who want to kill you, why on earth should I be okay with that?” Mikey questions.

“Whatever,” Gerard says, “I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Fine, I guess. Just take it easy for now, okay? We don’t need a repeat of what happened last time.”

Gerard’s eyes bug out a little, not needing reminding. He supposes that he must sound worse than he’d thought because he thought that he was fooling Mikey into believing he was okay. Mikey’s not that easy to fool though, especially when he’s got a built in lie detector like that.

“I’ll talk to you later,” Gerard says before he hurriedly ends the call, and closes his eyes to try to reassemble his scattered thoughts. He’s painfully afraid that his whole life is going to come crashing down around him at any minute, and he’s got this unbelievable dread that stretches from his toes to his ears that Frank’s going to make his life worse. He’s horrified that Frank’s going to dig up some things from Gerard’s past that he’d ideally have buried in the deepest catacombs of the earth for all eternity. 

He looks around at his room, dark because he never turns the lights on. Gerard sighs, and then looks around at the floor where he threw off his clothes earlier. He doesn’t want to go into work. He wants to stay home and watch old movies for a little while, but he can’t, and he knows that which is something he can’t stand. Sometimes he wants a monopoly get out of jail free card except it’s applicable to his entire life. He just wants to take a break from his life for a couple of days to let out some of his stress.

Except the thing about this job is that it’s almost more stressful to be away from it than it is to be in the office, which is something he still doesn’t get. Maybe it’s because Gerard knows about all the gruesomeness of all the horrifying people out there. It’s almost like he sees a new serial killer or potential psychopath whenever he closes his eyelids, and that’s something that he’s tried to keep away from getting to him, but it hasn’t helped. He still sees those horrifying things and he can’t stop it. He just wants to make everything he’s seen go away, because the number of things he’s seen is enough to make the most terrifying horror film ever seen, and it’s his life. Gerard’s life is a series of one murderer after the next. The worst people in the world, the scummiest of all the humans, that’s what Gerard’s life revolves around. It’s not hard to imagine that getting to you, especially after letting it all accumulate for a few years. 

Instead of doing what he’d like, face planting back into the sheets around him, Gerard makes his way through what would typically be his morning routine if it weren’t for the fact that it’s so late.

He groggily picks out a shirt and pants and the works. He decides that he doesn’t need a shower because he hasn’t got the time nor will, so he’s out the door a little less than fifteen minutes later after downing a cup of instant coffee and inhaling a few slices of bread. He knows he’s going to need a proper meal really soon, especially since he hasn’t eaten in a while, but he’s also annoyed with the fact that everything’s got to be closed soon.

Gerard’s fairly surprised that he doesn’t’ have any missed calls, because he thinks that surely, someone would have called him when he didn’t show up this morning. He thinks that there should be an entire screen full of missed call notifications, but instead there’s nothing. In a way that makes him even more depressed and displeased with having to go into work, because it makes him worry that the team don’t need him.

He can’t stand the idea that his own team doesn’t need him. He likes to think that he’s the glue, he makes everything run smoothly, but they don’t even need him enough to give him a call. He feels pointless, and this makes his slow slump to his car even more dreadful.

Every nerve inside of him is screaming to stay away or to get out while he still can, but his conscious is on the other end, trying to remind him of all the people who are depending on him. Dead people are depending on him, their families, the families of murderers, potential next targets, people who haven’t died yet but will soon, they’re all depending on him. And as cheesy as it sounds, he can’t let them down. 

Gerard finds his car, climbs into it, and he makes his way to the office without thought. He’s gotten so used to this drive by now that it has become a second nature. He doesn’t even need to think, his body already knows what to do.

It’s because of this that makes him almost surprised when he pulls into his parking garage and finds himself in his usual parking spot. He looks around him, trying to remember how he got there. It feels like some sort of jump cut in his life, but that can’t be it, because his life hasn’t been edited. He just shrugs it off, crediting it to how supremely sick he feels, and he gets out of the car.

Gerard spots Brendon’s car a little while down in the same row. That must mean that he’s in. He wonders if Frank is too. He hopes not. He would hate to have to face Frank after this. He’s only been awake for a little while, he’s not prepared to deal with Frank, or anyone’s intrusive questions really.

Gerard steps through the parking garage, wishing it were smaller or that the door was closer to where he parks. It’s almost deserted, which doesn’t surprise him as it’s late. There’s still a bunch of people here, especially when you compare it to a regular office building, but relative to how this garage usually looks, it’s pretty vacant. 

Gerard can hear his footsteps echoing off the walls and it helps ground him to reality. If not for the relief of the warm air that the inside brings, Gerard would almost rather be outside than in the building. Yet, it’s cold out and the warmth provides a little comfort, filling the place of what his echoing footsteps had provided.

Gerard stays still for a moment in the lobby of the building, listening to the sound of his slightly labored breathing. He shivers from the temperature change twice, and then glances around the marble room and thanks his lucky star for the vacancy. The last thing he needs is some crabby secretary judging him and his disheveled appearance. Good thing it's so late. 

A few moments later, Gerard's feet are carrying him off the elevator and he wishes he didn't have another black-out moment so that he would have had a little more time to wallow alone. But, there's a ding, and he has no choice but to exit. So, he does, and he drags himself sulkily through the dimly lit office. Not many people are in, he realizes. Maybe nobody called him because everyone left. But that doesn't explain Brendon's car in its designated spot… 

"Gerard?" He blinks and turns to see Brendon approaching him from the office's kitchen area. "Hey, you're back. Good. How're you feeling?" 

Instead of answering, Gerard eyes the steaming mug in Brendon's hand. "When did you get in?"

Brendon gives Gerard a slightly suspicious look, but says. "'Bout three hours ago. I'm the only one in right now, Patrick just left about an hour ago. He did not look good. Don't even wanna know how long he's been up. But what about you--?"

Just then, the elevator dings behind Gerard and they both turn to look. Out steps Hayley, a little blue bundle of energy. She brushes off her pants, which, they couldn't help but notice are flannels, and bounces briskly past them. 

"Hey, boys! Miss me?"

Brendon is the first to light up; Gerard is still too busy blinking and trying to process his surroundings through his muffled brain. Brendon gets this big grin and he jogs after Hayley, who is now dumping a briefcase and a large stack of papers on her desk, which was vacant for far too long.

“You are a ray of sunshine,” Brendon says, walking over to her until he stops right next to her cubicle. 

“How’d it go?” Gerard asks, walking over, still finding himself somewhat hypnotized by Brendon’s coffee.

“Well, I put a couple guys in prison, if that’s what you’re asking,” Hayley replies, and she starts to reorganize her desk.

“Considering you’re a fed, that would be a good thing,” Brendon says with a nod.

“I think so. Patrick faxed me the files for the case you’re working on, and I caught up on my plane,” Hayley says, bringing out a thick folder about the same size as War and Peace, or at least it feels that way. “First of all, I didn’t know that fax machines still existed, but secondly, this one looks like a doozy.” 

“Yeah, we’ve all been working pretty hard, following every lead we’ve got, and we haven’t got much to go on still.”

“Well, I’m here now so it’ll go a lot smoother, I’d imagine,” Hayley shrugs, and Gerard grins at her, rolling his eyes. “Everyone’s left then? You two heading out soon?”

“Nah, I just got here,” Gerard says, “and Brendon’s only been in for a couple of hours, but everyone else is gone. You’ve probably got jet lag, you can go home, take a little time off until you’re rested.”

“Nope,” she says, shaking her head, “I’m here now, and there’s nothing I love more than a serial killer. That came out wrong, but you know what I mean.”

Gerard just shrugs, shakes his head and says, “If you insist, I’m going to get some coffee.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment?


	8. Hold it Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting nowhere.

As it turns out, Hayley is actually the only member of Gerard’s team who has the capability to get them to actually make any progress whatsoever in going in the right direction. Gerard sometimes wonders where he would be without her and then he remembers that, yeah, he’d probably be dead, because Hayley is fucking fantastic at what she does.

She’s the only one who’s able to move the case from where it currently stands at a complete stop, because she takes the time to comb through as much security footage as she can get her hands on. That’s how they manage to find a suspiciously dark vehicle fleeing the scene on a camera a couple of blocks away from the third crime scene. At first, it gets them nowhere because Gerard’s sure that the vehicle has to be stolen, and he’s right, but the interesting thing is that the van was stolen from the house of its owner.

The peculiar thing about that is that it almost definitely means that it was not a crime of opportunity, which narrows down the fact that the robbers were looking for a specific type of car, because a residential area is not your typical hunting ground for a car thief. A car thief prays on parking lots, and parking garages. This car would have been stolen to serve a specific purpose. The second thing that this tells them is that the offender probably doesn’t live in that particular area because you wouldn’t steal a car in your own neighborhood. There’s a chance that someone may recognize you, and criminals tend to think they’re throwing the cops off if they go further from home to commit their crimes.

Without Hayley, Gerard would never have come to the conclusion that the people they’re looking for, are almost definitely white guys. This conclusion is easily drawn when they find out where the car is stolen from, because it’s a higher class neighborhood. People are racist as fuck, if they saw anyone but white people on their street, the cops would have heard about it and looked into this way before now. So basically, Hayley is the only thing keeping Gerard sane.

“Well we can’t rule out that the car was reported stolen, but never actually stolen,” Gerard says, writing things across the whiteboard in their meeting room.

“I think it’s unlikely, the guy who owns it is in his late forties, I think if you’re going to commit a crime with this much disorganization but still with this much intent, you’re gonna be a little younger, not gotten the hang of the business yet,” Gerard says, “We’ve gotta work on leads for my jury theory, I think that’s going to get us the furthest.”

“But there’s no way to tell what jury these people were all on, the files have been buried,” Brendon shakes his head, “Patrick called literally everyone with authority, but no one’s going to unseal those records for us.”

“But we’re trying to solve three murders here,” Gerard groans, rubbing at his temples with annoyance.

“Well you try telling them that. It’s a matter of national security or something, I wasn’t listening completely because I was too pissed off, but we have no valid reason to open those records without real evidence as to why we need to do so. As it is now, Gerard, this is still a theory. It’s a damn good one, because this whole 12 Angry Men thing is pretty transparent once you know what to look for, but we can’t do anything about it.”

“Could we put an alert on the next name of the juror so if anyone makes a reservation under that name we’ll know?” Hayley asks.

“Restaurants have no obligation to grant us that access, and even if they do, they probably don’t keep such great books all around, at least not about reservations, I don’t think it’s going to get us anywhere,” Brendon shakes his head, crossing his arms, “but when the sun comes up, I’ll see what I can do about that, but I’m not making any promises.”

"Okay," says Gerard, glaring at a corner of the conference table with a furrowed brow, "so we have an un-carefully stolen van, a likely Caucasian group of suspects, and a vengeful jury that we know nothing about. Where do we go from here?" He can't help the way his eyes flicker hopefully over to Hayley. He may be the leader, but with the mental state he's recently been in, Hayley's taken charge and been getting more done than they can all keep up with. 

Hayley puts her delicate-looking hands up in defeat, and with a sigh Gerard calls the meeting adjourn. 

He feels the minutes drag by, each one longer than the last, and he’s not sure how he even lives long enough to see the clock go from late at night to early in the morning, to midmorning. He looks up at last to see Patrick exiting from the elevator, looking sleepy, but upright nonetheless. Gerard pauses the security video he’s watching, and stands up from his seat to look out the window at the cubicles, spotting Brendon’s head, Hayley’s bright hair, and he’s surprised to see that Frank is there also. He must have missed Frank getting in, but he’s not sure he entirely cares.

He decides now would be time to regroup and try to come up with a different game plan for the day. It’s easier now that the city starts to awake and they’re all together to work on everything.

Gerard makes his way out of the office, and says to his team, beckoning them to the board room, “I think we should try to figure out our strategy for the day ahead.”

“Oh, he’s alive,” Frank says, sounding upset, “Bummer.”

“Ha, fuck you,” Gerard says, just as smarmily in return.

The meeting is basically about as helpful as the last one, if not a tad more so; Gerard recites the information on the case that he already knows by heart, and finishes off by shuffling around some papers and taking a clunky seat in his chair. Hayley reports that she’s playing with a few very loose ideas on connections that definitely require some more information before they really become fully developed leads, and Brendon makes a plan to call up the most high end restaurants listed later in the afternoon. The two of them agree to put their heads together and see what they can find.

"Maybe Ray's got something to go by!" Frank pipes up for the first time, after a few moments of silence. Gerard's eyes snap up to where the shorter man sits at the other end of the table with his back slumped and his legs spread, sprawled in the cushiony office chair. Gerard tries desperately to ignore the swooping in his stomach and the way his eyes are tempted to travel south. Instead he opts for narrowing his eyes and scowling. 

He scowls at Frank before he says, "I told Ray and his little team to abandon the case a while ago. Why would they have anything new to say on the matter?" He means for it to come out in a rhetorical way that's supposed to make Frank feel stupid for even bringing the lower team up, but Frank just closes his legs and leans forward with wide, important eyes.

"I don't know. Maybe they _had_ a lead before you stepped in and shoved them out of the way."

Instead of biting back, Gerard clamps his teeth shut and glares at Frank. His eye twitches.

When there meeting is over, Frank walks up to Gerard while he erases the board. The inked man waits until everyone leaves to carry on with whatever work they have, before leaning against the wall, seriously breaching in on Gerard's personal bubble. Gerard stiffens.

"What, Frank?" he doesn't really ask, turning to face away from him and wiping furiously at the white board. He hopes to God Frank can't see the red creeping up his neck and cheeks at the shorter man's closeness.

"Where've you been?" Frank's voice is masked with innocence and mock concern, but Gerard can hear the harshness in the question fighting to be heard. Gerard knows he's talking about where their sex life has been. But since Gerard's breakdown, the idea of sex, or _anything_ aside from getting out of bed, drinking coffee, and sitting at work, for that matter, has just seemed like a huge load of effort. Even with Frank.

"Been busy," he mumbles into the white board, which is definitely clean by now.

"Bullshit," Frank snaps, and Gerard jumps.

“Excuse me?” Gerard asks him.

“You heard me, Gerard,” Frank says. “You’re dodging something between the two of us, and I’m really annoyed with just putting up with your avoidance.”

“You’re being a dick, Frank,” Gerard says, “but what else is new.”

“What’s up?” Frank asks him, crossing his arms.

“I don’t know, I’ve just had a lot going on?”

“What, in your social life, you mean?” Frank asks, “Because I wasn’t even aware that you _had_ a social life.”

“Give it some time, Frank, and you won’t have one either,” Gerard says, honestly. There’s not much room for a social life in this job. The only friends you have are the friends you see at work. Gerard’s only real friend outside of work anymore is his own brother, and that doesn’t count. Mikey’s his brother, he’s got an obligation to be there for him.

“You don’t know me,” Frank scathes.

“I don’t care to know you,” Gerard retorts, gathering up some papers from the table, and doing his best to pretend that Frank’s not there.

“I... just don’t get why you’re being so cryptic with everything,” Frank says, “What’s so important that it has to take precedence over this case, and... never mind what else.” Frank stops himself from saying ‘me’ because that sounds too clingy. It makes him sound like he’s upset over Gerard’s absence rather than just annoyed. He can’t have that. He doesn’t want Gerard thinking that he considers whatever this is, whatever is going on between them, to be anything more than physical. Frank doesn’t actually care about Gerard, he just thinks that the guy is kind of hot. That’s all.

“I have to get back to work, Frank,” Gerard says, when he finishes gathering his things.

“You’re avoiding my question.”

“I’m aware of that,” Gerard says, “it’s intentional.”

“You can’t hide whatever it is you’re not telling me forever,” Frank says, and Gerard halts, staring at him so blisteringly angry. Frank has no idea. He thinks Gerard’s just avoiding him because of some stupidly petty reason. Frank thinks so little of him. Gerard is almost tempted to just snap at him and say that, lately, everyday that he wakes up still alive feels like a miracle to himself. Getting out of bed is like climbing Mt. Everest. Mustering up enough energy to be cordial, even to the people he likes, feels like a war and a half.

Gerard doesn’t say any of those things. Instead, he just slips past Frank, avoiding the question altogether. He needs to be in his office. He needs to be alone. He needs to forget about Frank and how he’s just one more part of his life that Gerard now has to deal with, but he hasn’t got the time nor the energy to face that actuality.

But Gerard decides to be the bigger person. Or at least, he is the bigger person if you don’t consider fantasizing about the other person’s death to be as trivial as name calling.

Frank lets him walk away without saying anything snotty to him. For this, Gerard silently thanks him, because to Gerard, it’s a merciful gift, and he hopes Frank could never have to understand why. Because the way Gerard feels, he wouldn’t wish that on his worst enemy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment maybe?


End file.
